Wildcard Read Online Free PDF Page A

away.
    “Good,” said a voice behind him. “You wanted
not kill. I want you live.”
    Sublime sat up quickly and turned. The man
had black hair and eyes and a lean face. He wore leather clothes,
like a modern Indian and sat on a rock, looking calmly at Sublime.
“Who you are?”
    “RJ Sublime. Are you LuvRay Chose?”
    “Shoze is name sound. Yes, I am. Why you are
here?”
    “I’m looking for you.”
    LuvRay nodded. “I thinked. I dreamed. What
is your want of me?”
    “I want you to go to France, to find
somebody. Her name is Martha. I have passports, documents, money
and credit cards. A flight is booked, and train tickets.”
    LuvRay didn’t answer. He just walked away.
Sublime spent two more days there, waiting. He looked, but knew he
wouldn’t find the man. He could only wait for LuvRay to contact
him. When he started a fire two nights later to cook, he decided to
leave the following morning. LuvRay had made up his mind
apparently. He wouldn’t go.
    Sublime returned to the fire after taking a
piss; LuvRay was stirring the pot. He turned to Sublime, opened his
hand and dropped some things into the chili.
    “I go, RJ Sublime, if you go me and meet
triatee dhan.”
    “Who? What?”
    “Not know word. Spareets from dry
earth?”
    “Spirits? Of the desert?” He laughed. “Lord,
I do believe I’m in the wrong movie.”
    Sublime walked over to his horse, took out
his Swiss Army knife and an onion. “Show me the way.” He looked at
the wrinkled nubs in the chili, stirred them in. “Peyote?” He cut
up the onion, dumped it in as well.
    “No. Different. Only Indian know this. Make
vision.”
    An hour after they ate the chili, RJ handed
LuvRay the bottle of Mescal he had bought in the last town. He was
feeling the onset of the cactus buds. LuvRay sipped a tiny amount,
handed it back.
    “You bring me death.”
    “What?” Sublime was looking at the stars and
they were looking back. “I don’t operate that way.”
    “Triatee dhan show my death. They say now.
You bring on horse.”
    Sublime sat up. “I don’t usually kill
people, LuvRay. Why would I kill you?”
    “I no say you kill me.”
    “All…all right. What did the ghosts show
you, then?”
    “Only what I say. No more.” He looked at
Sublime. “When animal die, they no bury. They walk away, no think.
I seed many wolf die. Elders. All my wolf are died. Time I was cub.
All.”
    “What about the wolf I saw tonight? What’s
his name?”
    “She. No name. Wolf has no name. Only man
has name. Her pack chase away. Alone. I take her. Now I leave, send
her alone again. Soon, she die.”
    “Why? She needs you for food?”
    “Some. More is wolf die if alone. No pack,
no reason for live. Like this.”
    As the buds and the Mescal combined, Sublime
gradually lost touch with reality. He started to float in space, to
lose track of everything. He saw faces, the cactus and plants began
to talk and move about, each movement a symbol of unnamable
fears.
    “No,” said LuvRay. “No this way.”
    LuvRay taught him. He needed to take the
intensity, bring it to his body, not get lost in mind. He needed to
open it outwards, not inwards. “Lay on back, speak for stars,
after, speak for ground and plants and animals. This good way
you.”
    So he did. And the stars sang, in a language
out of the knowledge of man which he did not know, but understood.
The stars held him, hovering in an embrace beyond time, in a
wordless space where nothing needed to be true. Hours later, LuvRay
stood above him.
    “Now you meet fire.”
    LuvRay squatted and reached into the fire,
grabbed a burning ember and held it in his open palm, unharmed.
LuvRay smiled at him, handed him the ember. He dropped it, looked
at the blister on his palm, looked back at LuvRay. He stood and
began walking away, turned his head and motioned for Sublime to
follow him.
    They walked into the desert. The fire
dwindled and disappeared. Sublime no longer knew how to get back to
the campsite. LuvRay cut limbs